2012:

It has been just over a year since Tegrity was rolled out across the three campuses of the University of Washington and the findings of a recently released report by UW-IT indicate that a majority of faculty and students found Tegrity to be helpful in enhancing student learning in the classroom. Tegrity is a lecture capture tool that gives instructors the ability to record classroom activity and upload these recordings on a student accessible site to review later on. These recordings consist of of a combination of on-screen recordings of the computer and live audio/video feed of the class via webcam. By using this technology, instructors were able to provide additional resources to students who wish to review course material and catch up on lectures without much additional effort.

As technology begins to direct itself more towards education and learning, the adoption and integration of tablet devices in the classroom, as either replacements for traditional textbooks or additional tools for the curriculum, becomes a pioneering solution in the enhancement of education for students and instructors.

Earlier this fall, The Boston Globe’s Billy Baker reported on the increasing and popular uses of iPads in the classrooms of Cardinal Spellman High School in Brockton, Massachusetts. Each student was issued their very own iPad, making the dramatic move from textbooks and paper assignments, to a more digital and interactive alternative. Some students felt that they were much more organized, engaged, and excited about their learning. Many teachers saw that their students were more collaborative with each other and interactive with their assignments.

Inside Higher Ed reported yesterday that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will fund an 18-month project assessing the impact of MOOCs in selected public universities in Maryland. The project will cost $1.4 million and will be run by nonprofit research group Ithaka S+R.

The goal of the project is to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of MOOCs, to see if they make a difference in student learning. Because MOOCs are comparably inexpensive to costs associated with traditional face-to-face classes, there could be great benefits to using MOOCs in a university setting. If the research results show equal or improved student learning, they could open many new doors for MOOCs and influence academia to rethink their role in formal education.

Ithaka S+R will watch these courses closely and measure their effects with, according to Robinson, “rigorous assessment[s] of how students fared using these technologies”.

Although the full list of MOOCs hasn’t been decided, spokeswoman for the Gates Foundation Debbie Robinson lists Coursera and edX as two that the project will definitely use.

Sara Frizelle

Over the summer, Sara Frizelle came aboard as the new E-Learning Specialist at UW Bothell. She comes to us from Everett Community College where she was the Director of eLearning & Instructional Design. As Director, she worked collaboratively with faculty across all academic departments to provide assistance in the development of online, hybrid courses and web-enhanced courses. Sara was also responsible for researching, implementing and supporting various eLearning tools such as the Learning Management System, Tegrity, Blackboard Connect, Quality Matters, SoftChalk, Respondus and Jing.

Her position at EVCC also included mentoring faculty on teaching and learning pedagogy and she also had a hand in the creation of innovative classroom and community spaces on campus. Outside her role as Director, Sara was an associate faculty in the Education department, where she hybridized and taught the Introduction to Education course.

Sara is currently a doctoral student at The University of Washington Seattle in Learning Sciences, where she is focusing her attention on how institutional policy and institutional structures affect teaching and learning and faculty professional development.

Sara will help expand Learning Technologies’ mission of enhancing teaching and learning, both online and on campus. She will work with faculty and students, focusing on developing effective instructional and learning strategies for eLearning including hybrid learning, online courses, web tools and more.

Since the University of Washington worked with Google to make available a UW-branded version of the popular Google Applications (Gmail, Google Documents, Google Sites, Google+, Blogger), the apps have been used for various teaching and learning initiatives at UW Bothell. The Center for University Studies and Programs (CUSP) program and the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (SIAS), for example, both use Google Sites for student electronic portfolios.

But, you might ask, beyond the commonly used apps and the common ways to use them, is anyone making creative use of these tools for teaching and learning? Yes! Here are two examples.